Uncommon Grounds

by Sandra Balzo

  The service lasted about an hour. Langdon spoke about Patricia’s faith and dedication to the church, her family and her community. Patricia’s son, Sam, managed to make it through a scripture reading before breaking down. That was followed by the song, “On Eagles’ Wings,” which always does me in even if it has become to funerals what “Proud Mary” is to wedding receptions.

  As the casket was carried out, there was an undertone of sniffling accompanying the organ music. A life cut short, a mother leaving her children too soon.

  And why? Someone here might know the answer. I glanced around the church as we waited in our pew to be dismissed by the ushers. Everyone seemed to be there, including law enforcement. Gary was keeping a watchful eye from his position behind David, where the receiving line—or whatever it’s called at a funeral—had formed. Pavlik was standing at the door and seemed to be looking in my direction, but at someone just beyond me.

  I turned around to look, but the pew in front of us had just been dismissed and people were streaming past. Laurel and Mary came by, then Rudy. Up ahead I could see Way, and in front of him, Roger Karsten. Roger was good-looking, I supposed, in a pretty-boy way. Curly blond hair, blue eyes.

  As I watched, Roger shook hands with David. David nodded woodenly, accepting Roger’s condolences, but didn’t seem to react any differently to him than to anyone else. Sam, to David’s left, was another story.

  I nudged Caron. “Look, Sam won’t shake hands with Roger.” Sam looked right through Karsten, moving on to shake the hand of the next person in line. It was very well done, considering the kid was only fifteen. I have adult friends who have worked years to be able to snub someone as effectively as Sam had just done.

  “So Sam knows,” Caron said softly next to me.

  Startled, I glanced at Bernie. He smiled, albeit painfully, and put his arm around Caron’s shoulder. “It’s all right Maggy. Caron told me about her and Roger, and Patricia.”

  “And you’re...”

  He sighed and pulled Caron a little closer. “Okay, or we will be. We just need some time.” Caron was crying.

  I hoped she realized what she had in Bernie. He was giving her the chance I had denied Ted. Then again, Ted hadn’t dumped his hygienist, like Caron had dumped Roger. Instead, she would be promoted to trophy wife shortly after the divorce became final. So much for parallels...

  By the time we slid out of our pew, most of the crowd had moved into Fellowship Hall for coffee and cake. Langdon was next to David, who looked pale and exhausted. He thanked Langdon and assured him that he would see him on Sunday before he turned to me. I hugged him and said all the appropriate things, which, of course, never are.

  We had to get back to the store, but I wanted to see who else was in Fellowship Hall. The person I was looking for was Roger Karsten, though I figured it was unlikely he would hang out to chat at his former mistress’ funeral, especially after the reception Sam had given him.

  But as luck would have it, Roger was made of sterner stuff—or perhaps just totally insensitive stuff. I caught a glimpse of him just coming out of the men’s room. He straightened his tie, looked around and made a quick right out the side door. I dashed across Fellowship Hall and followed.

  “Roger!” I yelled, chasing him down the sidewalk.

  He kept right on walking.

  I took a short cut across the church lawn, trying to cut him off and sinking up to my sensible two-inch heels in the process. “Roger,” I called again as I dodged around the church sign and caught up to him in the parking lot.

  He turned abruptly and I pulled up short, a glob of lawn clinging to each shoe. Roger looked down at my shoes and then up my body until he finally reached my face.

  “I want to talk to you about Patricia,” I said.

  “I didn’t know Mrs. Harper very well. I just came to pay my respects.” He turned away.

  I grabbed his arm and whispered, “I want to talk to you about Patricia and Caron.”

  That got his attention. His mouth opened but nothing came out, so he slammed it shut. Running a hand through his curly blond locks, he must have decided to bluff. “Mrs. Harper and Mrs. Egan are—were—your partners. What would I know about them?”

  I decided to play hardball with the chump, since it had worked so well with Kate. Taking a step backward, I took the volume up a couple of decibels. “That’s not the question. The question is, what do I know about them—and you...”A group of people walked past us on their way to their cars.

  This time Roger grabbed my arm. Ouch. Sarah could have this hard-boiled P.I. stuff. I pulled away and rubbed my elbow. “Hey, that hurt.”

  He had the grace to look embarrassed, but only for a moment. “What do you mean, about them and me?” he whispered.

  “Let’s cut the crap.” I managed to keep my voice low but, I hoped, menacing. “I know you were fooling around with Patricia and Caron. Don’t bother to deny it.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  Hey, this wasn’t so hard after all.

  Karsten rubbed at his chin, like an old man putting on Aqua Velva. He looked around. “All right. I had...a relationship with Patricia and one with Caron. But not at the same time.”

  And that made it all right.

  He was shaking his head. “I suppose the whole town knows about it by now. Patricia’s kid sure knows. That damn sheriff said he wouldn’t say anything unless he had to.”

  I exploded. “You little shit. You’re worried about your reputation. I can’t believe you had the nerve to show up here today. For God’s sake, think of someone beside yourself. Like David, for example. Or Sam. Or Bernie Egan. Or Caron.”

  “Now wait a second. I wasn’t alone in this. It takes—”

  Honest to God, if he said “it takes two to tango,” I was going to smack him one. I waved my hands to cut him off. “Just tell me, was it over with Patricia before you hopped in bed with Caron?”

  He nodded. “I told you that.”

  Yeah, like I believed anything he said. “And it’s over with Caron?”

  “Yeah, she—”

  I waved him down again. “I’m not interested in the details. Who ended it, you or Patricia?” It couldn’t hurt to confirm what Sarah had told me.

  But Roger surprised me. “I did. She said she couldn’t divorce David.” He lifted his shoulders. “I didn’t understand. I thought she loved me.”

  Now I was confused. “You’re saying that you ended the affair? That Patricia didn’t?”

  He had been looking down at the sidewalk, but now he looked up. There were tears in his eyes. “You asked me why I came here?”

  I nodded.

  “I came here because I loved her. I just wanted to say goodbye.” He turned and walked away.

  Chapter Eleven

  Okay, let’s lay this out. Roger and Patricia had an affair. Patricia wouldn’t leave her husband, so Roger broke it off. And immediately jumped in bed with Caron. But still loved Patricia.

  The strange thing was, I thought Roger actually meant it. I guess he had his own personal code of ethics. Honor among sleaze. I shook my head and started back toward Uncommon Grounds.

  As I crossed the sidewalk to the store, I saw Tony Bruno in his dental office window. I waved and he came out, white coat flapping. “Just back from the funeral?” he asked.

  I told him I was.

  “Such a shame. So young for a lady to die.” He shook his head sadly and pointed to Uncommon Grounds. “A couple of people stopped by, not too many.”

  I wasn’t sure if that was good news or bad. “Do you want to come in for a cup?” I said, trying to get my keys out of my purse. “I’ll buy.”

  But Tony was buttoning his white coat. “Thank you, no. This time of year, my family and I, we go up to our cabin in Door County on Friday morning and come back in time for mass on Sunday. That means Thursday is always a very busy day for me.”

  I shivered in the April air. “Isn’t it awfully cool up there this early in the year?” If you picture Wisco
nsin as a mitten, Door County is the thumb, with Lake Michigan on the east and Green Bay—the body of water, not the city or the team— on the west.

  Tony shrugged. “It’s cold—but there’s plenty of work to be done. Painting, planting, putting in the pier. We all work together and it gets done. Then in the summer, we can relax.”

  I wished him a nice weekend and ducked in the door. We all work together, Tony said, and it gets done. I looked around the store. With Patricia gone and Caron acting so distant, it was not only harder to get the work done, but it was getting downright lonely.

  I hoped now that Caron had told Bernie, she would be more herself. I was worried about her. While I was fairly certain that Pavlik didn’t consider me a serious suspect any longer, I thought Caron still was. It was a good sign, though, that the sheriff had taken the time to go to the recount. It meant he hadn’t ruled anything out. Yet.

  As I flipped the “Closed” sign in the window to “Open,” I saw Bernie drop Caron off at the curb. She leaned back in and kissed him before turning toward the door. Caron was my friend. I would do what I could to help her, and if that meant ratting on Way Benson or Roger Karsten, even better.

  The rest of the afternoon sped by, a mad blur of lattes and biscottis. It was my turn to close since Caron had opened. By the time I finished vacuuming, I’d made up my mind to call Pavlik the next morning.

  He saved me the trouble. He was leaning against my van in the parking lot when I walked out of the store. He still wore the dark suit he’d had on at the funeral.

  As I approached the van, he straightened up and I noticed that the Caravan had left powdery white traces on the back of his suit coat. I started to tell him, but he interrupted.

  “Ms. Thorsen, I need to talk to you.” He looked grim. “We can do it at your home or at my office.”

  Now what did this mean? I wiggled my fingers vaguely toward the store. “Couldn’t we talk here?”

  He nodded toward the assorted people in the parking lot and storefronts who were casually, or so they thought, watching us. “No.”

  Well, I sure didn’t want to go downtown, so I might as well show the copper what great digs I had. Besides, Frank was there and I had a sudden vision of sheepdog drool streaming down one of Pavlik’s well-pressed pants legs. I told him to follow me home.

  Unfortunately for me and fortunately for Pavlik, Frank was a perfect gentleman. He did snuffle a bit on Pavlik’s pants, but the sheriff didn’t seem to mind. “Don’t worry, I have a dog at home.”

  He knelt down to give Frank a good rub on his belly. Yes, belly. Frank, upon seeing a strange man enter my home, immediately rolled over on his back, his pink tongue lolling out one side of his mouth.

  “You’re pathetic,” I told him.

  Pavlik finished the scratch and stood up, a smile on his face. “How old is he?” Dog people ask the same questions about dogs that kid people ask about kids. Except kid people usually don’t ask which breeder you use.

  “About two,” I said, leading him into the kitchen. “He’s my son’s. He left him with me when he went off to college.”

  Now, a kid person would have asked which college, Pavlik was concerned about the dog. “He’s a big guy. A dog like this needs plenty of exercise.” He looked around my tiny house, ready to slap me with a dog abuse citation, no doubt.

  I sank down at the table and waved him to do likewise. “I know, I know. A neighbor boy comes over after school and walks him when I can’t. He really is too big for this place, but there was no choice. Me or the pound.”

  Pavlik nodded. He was looking positively congenial. It must cut down on headcount in the office to be able to play “good cop/bad cop” all by himself. “Same with my dog. She’s not perfect, but I couldn’t let them put her down.”

  “What kind of dog do you have?” I pictured a German shepherd or a Doberman. I wasn’t disappointed.

  “A pit bull.”

  My God, a pit bull? “You’re a police officer, how can you own a pit bull?” I sputtered.

  He rose in defense of his dog. “You know, a pit bull, or any other kind of dog for that matter, is not intrinsically evil. It’s the people who train them to rip each other apart who are evil.”

  “Rip each other and people apart,” I pointed out. “You can’t tell me they aren’t aggressive dogs to start out with.” I pointed to Frank, who was lying with his hairy chin on my shoe. “You could never get a dog like Frank to fight.”

  Pavlik looked weary all of a sudden, but his eyes met mine head-on. “You could if you starved him and made him fight other dogs for scraps of food. You could if you alternated beatings with praise to keep him off balance. Gave him food one time, and beat him with a two-by-four the next. Any dog can be made vicious.”

  Pavlik stood up and paced to the counter. “We busted a pit bull ring in Chicago. God, you should have seen those dogs. Scared, hungry. Absolutely berserk. The lame ones they used as bait for the healthy ones. Give them a taste of blood.”

  “And your dog?” I asked, feeling sick.

  “I found her in a filthy cage. No food. No water. She was so weak she couldn’t stand. She was little more than a puppy herself and they had been using her for breeding. Litter after litter.” Pavlik leaned against the kitchen counter. “The only people she had ever known had abused her. And you know what?”

  I shook my head.

  “When I opened the cage she came to me. Slid on her stomach, her tail—what was left of it—wagging this tentative wag. Like she expected to be hit, but hadn’t quite given up hope of better from me.” Pavlik smiled sadly. “When I scratched her behind the ears, she flipped over on her back, just like Frank did before.”

  He shook his head. “Even with all the abuse she suffered at human hands, she still had to try.”

  Okay, so I’m a sucker for dog and kid stories. By this time, I was blinking back tears. “So how long have you had her?”

  “About three years now. But enough about dogs.” He sat back down, getting all official again. “I need some information from you.”

  Talk about a change of subjects. And personalities. But if Pavlik wanted information, I was happy to give it to him. I filled him in on Summit Lawn School and told him what Sarah had said about Way’s involvement. “So, you see? Way Benson could have implicated Caron to cover his own tail.” I looked to Pavlik for agreement.

  And got none, of course. “Why would he have killed her now? It’s no different than when you theorized that Rudy Fischer did it. Mrs. Harper lost the election. If the ballot was legal and if it was for Mrs. Harper, it only meant a tie. Why would Benson kill her before the coin toss, even before the ballot was opened?”

  “Maybe he knew who it was for. It is missing after all. Why would somebody steal it, if it wasn’t important?” I was dancing around his point and we both knew it.

  Pavlik folded his arms. “We’re taking the word of an eighty-year old woman there even was a ballot.”

  “Because she’s eighty, she’s automatically unreliable? You know, much like pit bulls, old people should be judged on an individual basis. Sophie Daystrom is not senile.” But she was a bit of a pit bull, I had to admit.

  He raised his hands to ward me off. “Okay, okay, but I don’t think this town board thing has any bearing on the case. It’s just clouding the issue. Right now, I’m more interested in Mrs. Harper’s affair with Karsten.”

  Maybe I would have more luck pitching Roger as the prime suspect. “Sarah Kingston, Patricia’s campaign manager, told me that Patricia had kissed Karsten off.” I leaned forward in my seat and waved my finger to make my point. “Not Karsten, though. No, he says he stopped seeing her because she wouldn’t divorce David. Now there’s a motive for you. The spurned lover. It all fits.” I sat back in my seat and crossed my arms, satisfied.

  Pavlik was staring at me, fascinated. “Why do you do that?”

  I looked around uncertainly. “Do what?”

  “Start acting like some kind of bad TV private eye
all of a sudden. It’s like talking to someone with multiple personalities.”

  “Oh, please, that’s like Sybil calling Eve schizophrenic.”

  He thought about that for a second, then opened his mouth and closed it again. I wasn’t sure if he’d gotten the allusion, but at least it had shut him up.

  “All I’m trying to do is help,” I added.

  Pavlik rubbed his chin. “Okay, so if you want to help, tell me everything you know about David Harper.”

  “David? You think David did this?” I leapt to David’s defense, ignoring the fact that even I had entertained the notion he might be involved.

  “Listen,” I protested, “you didn’t see David when he came into the shop and found Patricia dead. He was devastated, I would swear to it.”

  “I know, I heard all about it from Donovan.”

  I didn’t like the way Pavlik said Gary’s name. “You know, Gary Donovan has more experience than you’ll ever have. Police force, Secret Service, corporate security and now police chief. You owe him some respect.”

  Pavlik’s eyes narrowed. “I show people respect when they earn that respect. Donovan did a lousy job at the crime scene.”

  “We didn’t know it was a crime scene,” I pointed out.

  “Any intelligent adult could have seen there was something wrong. It should have bit him in the ass.”

  I shook my head and bit my tongue. I was afraid I was doing Gary more harm than good here.

  Pavlik switched subjects. Now there was a surprise. “If Mrs. Harper was the target, and since there haven’t been any attempts on you or Mrs. Egan, I think we can be fairly sure of that—”

  “Attempts on us?” He was being pretty matter-of-fact about something he had never even mentioned before. Especially when that something involved my life and Caron’s. “Were you doing anything to prevent these possible attempts?”

  Pavlik smiled. “We’ve been keeping an eye on both of you.”

  I remembered the car out in front of my house Monday and Tuesday nights. Protection or surveillance? It amounted to the same thing in this case. The car hadn’t been there last night. “You gave up pretty easily, didn’t you?”